Strip it back, then glitch it
Take the weight off the usual drum & bass wall and see what is left: bare percussion, small glitches, a lot of air around the low end. That is microfunk, a minimal, glitched-up strand of the music. It is closely tied to the producer Bop, who is from Saint Petersburg, and to his label Microfunk Music. The duo Bop x Subwave are tied to the name too, and heads who know the stripped-back side of the music will know both.
What it sounds like
Bop's style of minimal, glitched-up drum & bass spawned a sub-genre title of its own.
The label's own billing of the 2023 667 EP by Abstract Elements paints the picture: "post-minimal drum and bass production" with an "intricate interplay of crunchy drums and sharp percussion", set against acid synths and sub-bass. The label's Lost Dubs 3 compilation was billed as featuring 10 "rhythmic glitch patterns", and its listing describes one track as a dub-techno pattern and another as a technoid roller. Crunchy drums, sharp percussion, sub-bass, and a technoid roller or two: that is the tune-by-tune picture, not one rigid template.
From Med School to Stockport
Med School and the Saint Petersburg connection
Med School was established in August 2006 as the experimental sister label to Hospital Records, with a focus on drum & bass but without limitation in terms of tempo or style. In 2009 it made its first exclusive signing, Bop, whose album Clear Your Mind landed at number 32 in the Official UK Top 40 Dance Album Chart in its week of release. Another producer from the Saint Petersburg region, Unquote, joined the label in 2010.
Bop and Subwave first met after appearing separately on Hospital's Future Sounds of Russia LP in 2009. The pair teamed up nine years later, and the duo Bop x Subwave released the album Renaissance on Hospital Records in November 2022.
Microfunk Music
Microfunk Music, based in Stockport, issued the four-track Microfunk EP (catalogue MICROFUNK001) in November 2015 on 12-inch vinyl, with contributions from Bop and Synkro, Nuage, Microfunk Crew and Dissident. Bop owns the label. Its catalogue lists albums and EPs by Bop, Oak, Nuage, Akuratyde, Subwave and Microfunk Crew, plus the Macrofunk EP vol. 2 compilation.
The names behind it
- Bop (Alexander Dmitriev): from Saint Petersburg and UK-based; aliases include Abstract Elements and Microfunk Crew; his album Clear Your Mind appeared on Med School in 2009.
- Abstract Elements: the duo of Bop and Diagram, who had released on Exit Records, Auxiliary and Invisible and became "an important piece of the Autonomic puzzle".
- Synkro: Joe McBride, from Manchester; he has released on Exit Records, Auxiliary and Med School, and his "Time" opens Lost Dubs 3.
- Subwave, Nuage, Oak and Dissident: contributors to Microfunk Music releases.
Two imprints, one lineage
Microfunk Music is the central imprint. Bop was signed to Hospital Records' Med School offshoot, and the Bop x Subwave album Renaissance appeared on Hospital Records, so the lineage runs through both.
Nights at Bruk
Club nights titled "Microfunk" have run at the Bruk venue in Manchester with Bop on the bill; one of them names Oliver Yorke, Synkro and Elsewhere as co-performers.
Still rolling
Microfunk Music stayed active into the 2020s. Lost Dubs 3 appeared in August 2020 as a limited run of 100 cassettes, and the 667 EP followed in May 2023.
Neighbours on the map
The label's billing of the 667 EP places Abstract Elements within the Autonomic story, the movement associated with Instra:mental and dBridge, whose 2010 FabricLive.50 mix carried the Autonomic name. On this site microfunk is kept apart from Minimal, Intelligent and Deep drum & bass.
